href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@43416@[email protected]#Page_183" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Page 183. Courtyard.—For 2 and 3 read 4 and 6; for 3 and 18 read 5 and 7; for 7 read 9; for 8 and 13 read 18 and 10.

Lower Corridor.—For 3 read 4; for 5 read 8; for 7 read 18; for 8 read 21; for 10 read 23; for 14 read 35; for 15 read 36; for 16 read 37; for 17 read 38; for 18. Porphyry read 39. Original.

No. 3. A votive altar dedicated to the imperial house, on the left side of which is a personification of the Via Appia reclining on a wheel, similar to Trajan's Relief on the Arch of Constantine.

No. 6. Egyptian statuette, with the cartouch of Rameses II., found on Via Nazionale. The base upon which it stands is inscribed to Fabius Cilone, prefect of Rome under Septimius Severus, who had performed the annual sacrifice to Hercules at the Ara Maxima, at the entrance to the Circus Maximus. No. 13 is a companion inscription, a circular vase offered by Catius Sabinus, prefect of Rome, who performed the annual sacrifice at the great altar of Hercules. It was found at the back of S. Maria in Cosmedin.

No. 17. Inscription to Hercules the leader of the Muses by the Consul M. F. Nobilior, 189 B.C., from the temple which stood in the Portico of Philip, now S. Ambrogio.

Nos. 2 and 3 in the courtyard are the two Egyptian lions from the Temple of Isis, which in the sixteenth century were placed at the foot of the ascent to the Capitol, and removed here in 1885.

Nos. 13 and 14. Two columns from the same temple found in 1883.

No. 32. Sphinx in red granite. 33. Vase in basalt, Villa Hadrian. Altar sacred to Isis. On the left side is Harpocrates, the god of silence; on the right, Anubis, the Egyptian Mercury. 34. Sphinx in basalt, with the cartouch of Amasi II., 550 B.C. 44 and 51. Monkey-gods of Pharaoh Nectanebus I., 370 B.C. 49. Crocodile in red granite. With the exception of the vase, all these objects came from the Temple of Isis and Serapis on the Campus Martius, founded, B.C. 100, by Apuleius II., and rebuilt by Domitian (Suetonius, "Dom." v.).

Hall of Mosaics.—On right in entering, inscription to Nerva, by Septimius Severus, A.D. 194, used in 1676 by the city Conservatori to record their privileges.

8. Mosaic Head of an Athlete. 9. The Sea with fish, and a border of foliage and birds, from the Baths of Olympia, Viminal Hill. 10. The Rape of Proserpina (the names of the horses are written in Greek), from a tomb on the Via Portuense. 12. Representation of a Bath, from the Prætorian Camp. 14. Hercules conquered by Love. 18. A veiled woman presenting a statuette to a seated nude figure, probably Mercury: a beautiful work. 24. Personification of the Month of May. 27. An Inundation of the Nile. 28. A Ship entering a Port. In the centre of the room,

ALTAR OF THE LARES.

In the month of August 1888, on the Via Arenula, the new street leading to the new Ponte Garibaldi, at the corner of the Via di S. Bartolomeo dei Vaccinari, the last street on the right which leads up to the reputed House and School of S. Paul, at the depth of twenty-seven feet (which shows how the soil has accumulated here), another of the Lares Compitales of the time of Augustus was discovered. It is a square marble altar with a beautiful cornice, which is, unfortunately, broken. On the front is a relief representing four men at a sacrifice, with bay crowns upon their veiled heads. A bull and a pig are by assistants being led up to sacrifice—the bull to the Genius Cæsarum, and the pig to the Lares. On each side of the altar is the figure of a youth, the titular deities; and at the back a crown.

Above the relief in front is the inscription,—

It was dedicated to the Lares of Augustus by four officials of a street nine years after Augustus had restored the street shrines. That was in 6 B.C. (Dion Cassius, lv. 8); so this altar was erected in A.D. 3.

On the right side under the cornice is inscribed,—

and on the left side,—

evidently the names of two of the officials.

The altar stands on a travertine base, on which is written,—

which is valuable as giving us the name of the street Vicus Æscletus, Beech Street.

This is the first mention we have of this street. The victors of the Pythian games were crowned with a chaplet made of beech leaves before the bay (laurel) was used; hence Ovid,—

Suetonius ("Augustus," xxx.) says, "He divided the city into regions and streets, ordaining that the annual magistrates should take by lot the charge of the former, and that the latter should be superintended by wardens chosen out of the people of each neighbourhood." Pliny ("N. H.," iii. 9) says, "The city is divided into fourteen regions, with two hundred and sixty-five cross streets under the guardianship of the Lares."

The pedestal of the Apollo, leader of the Muses (No. 516), in the Vatican Museum, is an altar dedicated to the Laribus Augustis, Genius Cæsarum, by four street officials; on the left of which is the Genius of Augustus, similar to the statue, 555, in the Sala Rotonda.

If the Jewish tradition is correct, that the House of S. Paul was at the angle of the Via S. Bartolomeo dei Vaccinari and the Via degli Strengari; and if the Romish Church tradition is true, that he had a school (room shown) at the Church of S. Paola alla Regola, on the Via S. Paola alla Regola, a continuation of the Via S. Bartolomeo dei Vaccinari; then we have at last arrived at the name of the street where the apostle dwelt for two whole years in his own hired house, 62 to 64,—namely, the Vicus Æscletus, probably so called because it led to a grove of beech trees, Æsculus being corrupted into Æscletus.

Pliny (xvi. 15) speaks of this grove: "Q. Hortensius, the dictator, on the secession of the plebeians to the Janiculum (A.U.C. 466), passed a law in the Æsculetum, that what the plebeians had enacted should be binding on every Roman citizen."

Second Room.—The walls are encased with inscriptions. On the left is a fragment of a Roman calendar, found in 1888 near S. Martino di Monti. It represents the 1st to 3rd, 18th to 29th of April, and 1st to 4th of May. On the door is part of a Lex Horreorum of the time of Hadrian. These magazines were situated near Monte Testaccio. On the right of window inscription of Lucius Aquilinus Modestus, master of the guild of timber merchants at Ostia. On the door opposite, inscription dedicated to the imperial house by a college of health found near Monte Testaccio.